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April 27, 2008
Oscar Challenge: The Life of Emile Zola
An incompetently run war! Racial profiling! An innocent man sent to some hellhole island! A paranoid and power-hungry government! Fickle public opinion! A hothead shouting "EAT MY SHORTS!"
(Okay, you caught me. Emile Zola said "J'accuse", not "Eat my shorts".)
This was an excellent flick, but it was almost too creepy to watch. You couldn't make a film about the Dreyfus Affair nowadays because nobody would believe it wasn't totally made up. Watching the scenes of Zola's trial was like watching freakin' Condi Rice lie testify before Congress. At least in this story you know the good guys are going to triumph, although if I'd been Alfred Dreyfus I would have told them to stick their apology up their derrieres.